Archived from groups: alt.games.diablo2,alt.games.diablo (More info?)
Crossposted to AGD2 and AGD
Since our first success in defeating the Uber Tristram with minimal
gears, I decided to share some of my experiences here. I'm playing HC,
if you are SC, you can take more risk.
The ladder season is new and most of us do not have many good items to
choose from. Therefore the goal of this guide is to defeat the Uber
Tristram with cheapest gears possible. This guide definitely needs
refinement, your input and feedback is greatly appreciated.
Throughout this guide I may cite articles from other websites, I will
not point to the exact URL because I want you to be familiar with those
sites if you haven't already. I will use the following abbreviations:
AB = Amazon Basin, AS = Arreat Summit, d2net = www.diabloii.net, d2de =
diablo2.ingame.de, and LL = Lurker Lounge. UB = Uber Baal, UD = Uber
Diablo (not Diablo Clone), and UM = Uber Mephisto. F = fire, C = cold,
L = lightning, P = poison.
INTRODUCTION
Patch 1.11 introduces new unique charm, Hellfire torch, and 6 new
superuniques. Go to AS for more information.
There are 3 tasks that you must complete in order to obtain this
Hellfire torch.
1. Obtain 3 sets of keys.
2. Obtain Baal eye, Mephisto brain, and Diablo horn.
3. Defeat UB, UM, and UD. The last one will drop the charm.
PART 1
The best character for this task is the max block Lightning sorceress.
I recommend max block because you will be teleporting a lot, when you
block, your sorceress will not go to the hit recovery animation.
Insight is highly recommended so Mana Burn monsters will not poise much
problem. FHR are important, in case you get hit, this will prevent you
from getting stun-locked. Go to LL for FHR breakpoint.
Key of Terror. Go to AB for Tower layout. Not much else to say here,
your sorceress should be able to easily dispose of the Evil Countess.
The rogue archers are the only possible obstacles if they are present
in the Countess room. Ignore them and go straight to the Countess, if
the archer is a unique with nasty mods, I'd just create a new game.
Key of Hate. I am certain there is no quick way to find the Summoner.
I usually pick NorthEast, SouthEast, SouthWest, Northwest. The only
Lightning immunes here are those spires (lightning columns with high
elemental resistances).
Key of Destruction. Go to AB for Halls of Pain layout. This is by far
the easiest & fastest run. Once you get to Halls of Vaught, move
rather slowly to see if there are Tomb Vipers. If you are playing
solo, it's probably a good idea to quit when you see a Viper.
Otherwise, send a TP with your sorceress. Trapsin is the best
character for this. Put traps on the edge of your screen and listen if
there are monsters ahead. If you traps are weak due to lack of +skill
items, move forward zig-zag to avoid direct poison hit, then cast Cloak
of Shadow. Bone or summoning necros are probably as good with Dim
Vision.
Addendum: Key of Destruction is highly sought by the rest of B.net
players since they are not familiar with Pain layout. You can trade
KoD for multiple of other keys or trade them for items if you want.
PART 2
Once you obtain 3 sets of keys, put 1 set in cube and transmute them in
Act 5. Random portal will open, therefore you should open all 3
portals in one game.
The Matron's Den.
Hammerdin is bad due to the narrow corridors and Hell Witches shoot
rapidly from afar. Best characters are Fireball sorceress and Smiter.
Sorceress can take care of the witches quickly and paladin can deal
with Lilith. Antidotes are not very helpful here because she casts her
poison very often. Lifetap should help. Sorceress should stay in the
background. Another paladin with Cleansing probably helps too.
The Forgotten Sand.
Lesser monsters are Spiders, Hell Swarms, and there are Maggots too I
think. Duriel use the same attack, Holy Freeze aura and Charge. Once
again Smiter should have little problem. I have not tested Hammerdin
since I don't have one. This could call for one though due to the vast
open space.
The Furnace of Pain.
Lesser monsters are Oblivion Knights and quad-immune Pit Lords. I ran
solo this with a Smiter. I was lucky that I only saw one group of
Knights en-route and Izual was accompanied by Pit Lords only.
Otherwise, this definitely calls for a Hammerdin or a sorceress to
target the OKs. Summoning necros are possibly good party to have as
well.
PART 3
Now for the good part. Transmute the 3 organs in Act 5 to open the
portal to Tristram. Lesser minions are Pit Lords (FCLP immunes),
Skeleton archers, melee, and mages (random immunes), Vampires (Phys C
immunes), and Specters (Phys P immunes).
The brothers are (always?) in the middle of the town. Go to AS for
their stat. UD has same skills as Diablo Clone, UB has same skill as
the normal one. UM has a Conviction aura. Use their overly aggresive
AI to your advantage by luring them out one by one. If you manage to
do that, then that's great, but even if all 3 comes out at once, it
should be no problem. In case all 3 show up, I recommend going after
Mephisto first because he poses the greatest problem with his
Conviction.
Smite, Crushing Blow, and LifeTap. That's all you need, Salvation
helps. The brothers each have 650K life, one succesful CB takes out
65K, that's quite possibly the largest amount of damage you can deal
with. As their life winds down, CB becomes less effective, so at this
time I prefer to Zeal than to Smite. CB is chance to take out 1/10 of
life in this case, so you decide when it's a good time for you to
switch to Zeal.
2 paladins are enough to do this easily. Pre-Cry from a barbarian will
greatly help, we had level 32 Cries. With a good Shout and Holy
Shield, the minions pose very little problems. The paladins should use
Fanaticism and Salvation. Here are cheap equipments:
Cat's Eye
Raven Frost, Dwarf Star, resist rings
Guillame's Face
Black flail (thul io nef)
Elite paladin shield with high base resist, make it a Spirit or Ancient
Pledge for even more resists.
Duriel's Shell / Duress / Guardian Angel
Dracul's Grasp
Thundergod Vigor / high resists belt
Goblin Toe / Goreriders
As many life and resist charms
Those simple items net you 90% - 100% CB.
Upgraded HoZ is great but not necessary, all elite paladin shields have
high Smite damage.
Dracul's Grasp is not necessary if you have Lifetap charges somewhere
(wand on weapon switch or Marrowwalk if you are fast clicker)
Note:
1. PMH doesn't work, so Nature's Peace is useless.
2. Even though Deadly Strike doesn't affect Smite, if you have it,
Highlord's Wrath is better than Cat's Eye. In doing so, you'll lose 25
dexterity and gain 35% LR and +1 skill.
3. If you have it, use Heaven's Light to pre-buff your Holy Shield and
to Zeal with it once your opponent's life winds down. Even if you
don't have a good Zealing weapon, keeps Smiting with your shield will
do the job well.
My purpose of writing this mini guide is to build the cheapest Uber
Tristram runner possible. All other guides I found in d2net always
involves Grief, Eth Exile Vortex, and CoA. What improvements can you
suggest? What other builds can possibly do this more easily?
Kicksins? Hammerdins?